


Bastard

by Hayato (TheLennyBunny)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Behavior, Gen, Pre-Canon, clan politics suck, complete for now, listen im not tagging spoilers its 2020 not 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:41:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24517090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLennyBunny/pseuds/Hayato
Summary: There is the matter of the eye, after they go home.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 76





	Bastard

Kekkei Genkai were said to be tailored to the clans they originated from, attacking anyone unworthy. “An enemy may grab our eyes, yet they shall never see again”. “An enemy may break our dogs, yet they’ll not be welcomed in the wilds evermore”. You could grasp the kekkei genkai, manage to figure out how to use it in your foreign body, but eventually the tolls would take you. Eventually, you would pay the full price.

Obito knew this when he offered his eye, raised in a prideful clan that guarded their blood more than a dragon its hoard. Kakashi knew this when he accepted, raised in a dying line that fiercely tried to continue tradition. Rin knew this when she performed it, going against half a dozen regulations and warnings from mentors in the hospital and on the front lines.

It was something frankly not a one of them cared about. Obito was going to die shortly, Kakashi and Rin were trapped and crowded in enemy territory, and war was a bloody, terrible thing. They had joined the ranks of shinobi well-aware it was a dying chance they’d make it out unscathed, and a slim one that any three of them would, young and against veterans. So.  _ Fuck it. _

Go out with a bang, they said, and Kakashi went out into battle and slaughtered Iwa left and right, go out with a bang they said and Minato-sensei appeared but it was too late and Obito was dead Rin was dying, go out with a bang they said and they fucking  _ did. _

Except Minato-sensei was left, grieving the two orphans he’d tried raising like his own. Except Kakashi was still alive, waking up strapped to a hospital bed with the eye that wasn’t his still in his head. And outside he could hear arguing, Minato-sensei and doctors forbidding someone from entering and something about rights and privacy and discussing matters when half the parties weren’t almost-comatose.

And he could see. Kakashi couldn’t move strapped down as he was but he could see, could blink both eyes without issue and there was an ache but it was nothing like the horrible, unending drain of chakra veterans whispered about. The voices reached a crescendo and the door to his room rattled as he cut his restraints, the percussion of fist against body rang as he ducked into the tiny lavatory, and the door burst open as Kakashi looked at himself in the mirror. He could barely see a difference in his eyes, right only slightly lighter in colour. There was no red-and-black tomoe, no inflamed capillaries, no bleeding membranes. It felt… normal. Minato-sensei almost ran face-first into the door looking for him, Uchiha Fugaku close behind, but Kakashi wasn’t really focused on their yelling.

Where was his toll?

* * *

Kakashi didn’t know much about his family outside of- his father. The Hatake were a clan that tended towards dog and wolf summons, lending them a light fierceness. Grey hair and eyes were common in the clan, sometimes shifting up to white and a light silver, sometimes down to a lead grey and dull brown. They had a lightning affinity. They had come to Konoha during the Foundation years, invited. They had slowly died out, thanks to seclusion and opinions on conflict that leaned towards  _ stop arguing about your pansy-ass special eyes  _ that made not many willing to intermarry. 

By the time Kakashi was born, few were left. His father, him, maybe a few cousins. His uncle, caring for his grandparents that died only a year or two after his mother. Nothing- extravagant. No wild doujutsu or forbidden techniques, just their sword forms and summons. Kakashi had assumed that was why they had been sneered at, even before his father’s- before the Suna mission.

He didn’t know his mother’s. Didn’t know if there was any family left of hers, with how his father had gone quiet and distant everytime she came up. He had her face and her eyes he knew, sharp and dark. He knew her hair was black, her skin pale, and her specialty ninjutsu and covert ops. There weren’t any pictures of her around the estate, before. Kakashi hadn’t sought out any, either. 

It was the negligence of a child who could see how much it hurt their parent, and then the spite of a son who didn’t want to stay within a shadow.

* * *

_ He must be judged,  _ Fugaku demanded, and Kakashi wasn’t surprised, much as it irritated him in a dull, distant way. The Uchiha were possessive and violent as any other clan, especially when it came to their Kekkei Genkai. They would call what the three of them enacted a direct attack on the clan. They likely want the damn thing back, and a thousand restrictions placed on his head. It’d been done before, though the Kumo nin had lost his head rather than been chained down.

_ He’s a  _ **_child_ ** _ , _ Minato-sensei insisted,  _ who just lost half his team and isn’t strong enough to even attempt escaping the hospital yet _ and he wasn’t wrong, not necessarily. Kakashi was definitely strong enough to attempt it except he’d immediately go careening to the ground, and, well. Being a child had stopped meaning anything once they dropped the graduation age at the Academy. Being a “child” had stopped meaning anything when Kakashi was forced to arrange a funeral that no one but he attended.

_ I think you both need to leave _ , the med-nin said blandly, and neither of the adults paid attention, which was a mistake in Kakashi’s book since her hands were glowing an ominous green. He was proven the wisest in the room when, with a small nod from Mikoto-sama and eye-roll from Kushina-san in the doorway, she reached out and clapped both the men on the shoulder and summarily dropped them to the floor, d- unconscious.

Kakashi watched this all play out with the blandest expression he could muster. This was why it was an open secret Mikoto-sama ran the clan. Said woman smiled at him from the doorway, polite and pretty and still all around looking like she’d be fine cutting open his throat if he proved a threat. It was the quintessential kunoichi look and she pulled it perfectly.

“Hatake-kun,” She said, “I apologise for these two. May I speak with you?”

* * *

“I apologise for your loss,” Mikoto-sama began, and it was surprisingly sincere. Her eyes looked tired up close, as though she’d recently been losing sleep. Kakashi hadn’t- well. There was a reason Obito avoided talking about his family, he had thought. “This war has been... an exhausting one. I can only hope we don’t lose anymore because of it. That said, Hatake-kun, there is now some matters we must attend to.”

“The eye.” His voice was monotone. Mikoto… tilted her head, lips pursed. She glanced at the men piled in the corner like dirty towels.

“...If it were my husband speaking, it would be about the transplantation, yes. But I fear he’s been affected as the rest of us have, Hatake-kun; it’s tainted his judgement.”

He blinked slowly. “The clan council isn’t clambering to dig it back out?”

“He would usually be treating the Uchiha Council like a group of rowdy toddlers,” She corrected, which sounded pretty on considering the complaining big-clan kids always did. “But with current stresses, he’s turned into a bit of a doormat.”

“Which is why you need to take charge for a bit.”

“Exactly.” Mikoto-sama gave him a smile, small and bright. Weren’t the Uchiha supposed to alternate between having a stick up their ass and a blade in their hand? “Which is why the matter is not your eye, Hatake-kun. Please, would you feed a bit of chakra to your eyes? None too much, just enough to activate a low-level jutsu.”

Her phrasing was- off, but Kakashi did as he was told because you just didn’t go against the second-most powerful woman in Konoha. They were lucky the med-nin wasn’t in or else he’d be exactly like the two still on the floor; he wondered how long it’d take their timeout to wear off. A second’s drain, not as much as he would expect from stories- 

And then everything was in hyperfocus, colours brighter and shadows darker. Kakashi blinked, closing Obito’s eye, but the change didn’t disappear. He looked at Mikoto-sama in bewilderment, and she was- triumphant, smug, and some sort of emotion that may have been a cross between grief and fondness. She inclined her head, slight, and reached into the obi of the kimono she was wearing, withdrawing a kunai. No doubt there were five more on her person and other weapons beside. She tilted it towards him in the light, angled to show his face, and Kakashi peered down, dreading seeing the eye he’d taken-

And he saw red eyes, a single tomoe spinning in his right counterpart to two swimming in his left.

* * *

Uchiha Yasu: A covert ops kunoichi with specializations in ninjutsu and elemental fuuinjutsu. Deceased, cause of death classified. Born to Uchiha Kohaku and Uchiha Ren, both deceased. No siblings.

Uchiha Yasu: A girl that loved to get into wrestling matches with her cousins and classmates, not caring at all if she got bruised up or dirty. A girl that would bring home stray animals and keep them as pets just long enough to see them healthy. A woman that, despite the tensions, tried to be friendly to the other clans, to outsiders. A woman that, when she first met Hatake Sakumo, managed to pin him in a hogtie and asked to go another match.

Kakashi didn’t hold the picture or brush it with his fingers or stare at it endlessly. It sat in his lap, sticking up in the dip between his legs. It was worn and small, but it looked carefully taken care of. There was a date written on the back, long in the past. Mikoto-sama didn’t seem to mind, watching him with a knowing expression he didn’t think belonged on her face. He didn’t say anything.

Kakashi had her face. He wondered if he would look like her when he smiled, like his father had always said.


End file.
